Around this time every NASCAR pre-season I’ll have a subscriber or two contact me about helping them out with their fantasy NASCAR game. The most difficult and urgent request is always the fantasy NASCAR game where you have to select one driver for each of the 36 races on the NASCAR schedule. In addition, you can only use a driver one time. Oh, and you have to make your complete season selections prior to the Daytona 500!
Unfortunately, none of the NASCAR statistical tools on the site make that challenge very easy. Actually, I still haven’t scripted or figured out a database query that makes the task easy either. It’s a labor intensive project that is an excruciating 90-minutes of 1) database query 2) copy/paste 3) rearrange drivers 4) do it again. But, like most research projects that suck while you’re doing it, in the end you’re pretty happy with the data you’ve compiled.
Since I put the effort in to this project and I think that 100 people could interpret and select a different combination of driver-to-race pairings I’m putting the spreadsheet here for anyone to download.
Click to download the spreadsheet.
NASCAR STATISTICS EXAMINED
Last season I created this spreadsheet using the averaged NASCAR Loop Data Driver Rating over the previous three seasons. This year I went with each drivers average finish position.
The top row of the spreadsheet follows the actual race schedule order of the 2015 NASCAR season. Going on the theory that certain drivers do better (or worse) as the season progresses I compiled the average finishes to be race specific. So, the column labeled Daytona 1 uses just the historical data from the first Daytona races during 2012, 2013 and 2014 (aka the Daytona 500). When you move along the top and get to Daytona 2 those values use the average finishes for the Daytona summer race (aka Coke Zero 400). This applies to all two race date tracks on the schedule.
I’ve included 54 NASCAR drivers in the list. This is basically the drivers the website considers as ‘active’ in 2015…meaning we should see them at some time this year attempting to make a race. The number along each driver row is their 3-year average finish (as noted above to be race specific).
Be aware that some of the lower-tier drivers on the list may not have three races of history for a race. For example, Kyle Larson has an average finish of 8th at Atlanta. In reality, he has only raced one race there so that is not really an average but his only finish.
Enjoy!
2 replies on “36 Races – One Driver Per Race – Fantasy NASCAR”
Yes, thank you! Does it make it any harder or easier if you can pick a driver TWICE during the season?
I think it gives a “false sense” of it being easier because it should make the “guessing” easier. In the end though, my experience with this type of game is that it is one of the hardest formats.